


Conscience and Counterweight

by Residesatshamecentral



Category: SS-GB (TV)
Genre: Angst, Archer is guilt ridden, Declaration of Love, Established Relationship, Freudian Slips, Hugs, Huth has personal issues, just tons, mentions of bones being broken, so many, sort of, we need them, whoda' thunk it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 22:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11045820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Residesatshamecentral/pseuds/Residesatshamecentral
Summary: Huth blurts something out that he really did not mean to say…





	Conscience and Counterweight

“You _stupid_ , _reckless,_ _brainless_ little swine I should beat you like the dog you are” whispered Huth.

Archer said nothing. He watched the smoke from his cigarette spiral slowly upwards to dissipate near the low ceiling of Huth’s room. Everything dissipates, he thought with the cloudy mysticism of the drugged. Everything dissipates in the end. This mood, the Reich, all the exertions and mistakes and acts of justification. He half closed his eyes and observed Huth through a cage of lashes as the other man paced the room end to end. He let Huth’s rant filter into his consciousness.

“…Stupid risk to take was enough but to take it for a _criminal_? She would have cut your throat had she known what you are -”

“You don’t know that” murmured Archer. He thought the remark would go unheard, but Huth wheeled ninety degrees and faced him with a sort of angry humour.

“ _What_ did you say?” his eyes glittered like stiletto blades.

“You know nothing about what she might or might not have done” said Archer. The pain was getting through the drugs by now, a distant dull throb like far-off cannon. He had urged the woman away from the half-finished slogan, speeding her escape with a light slap as the officers closed in on the alleyway. His story had been that he was acting as a provocateur. The Gestapo had apologised for the misunderstanding once he had shown his ID, but apologies do not set broken fingers. “What I saw when I found her was a poor woman who, like everyone else in this damn city, has prescience to see that the law has divorced itself from common morality. So what did she do? She spoke out. Clumsy, stupid way to speak out, but she was not planting bombs, she was not cutting throats and she certainly wasn’t poisoning the officer’s mess. Graffiti.” He barked out a laugh. “You say she would _cut my throat_ because she was spraying _graffiti_.”

“THEY MIGHT HAVE KILLED YOU!” Huth’s voice was the roar of an angry animal. Archer flinched, then got up “YOU RISK YOURSELF FOR SOME STUPID TART YOU DON’T KNOW!”

“PERHAPS I WANT TO JUSTIFY MY EXISTENCE!” Archer found that he was nose to nose with Huth now. He felt giddy, drugs and rage flushing his system like a fever. A tiny part of him wondered in a detached way how deep this anger truly went. He barely understood his own emotions any more, examining them in moments of quiet as though they were the notes on a case. He had become his own detective.

“You righteous, twitchy, pathetic little introvert” whispered Huth. His face was hard lines cut in stone, in which his eyes glittered, prehistoric. “Everything, _everything_ has to be about your dammed conscience, as though you did not make your own choice, with your eyes open. YOU COWARD” he roared “YOU DON’T HAVE THE COURAGE TO BEAR THE WEIGHT OF YOUR OWN PAIN. WELL, WHAT ABOUT THE WEIGHT OF MINE?”

There was a loaded silence. It stretched out, becoming more loaded every second. Eventually the weight became too much for one silence and whatever forces organise these matters requested that some of the load be put into storage.

“…I…meant that your death or imprisonment would be a great pain to me” continued Huth at a normal volume. “Do you realise how essential you have become to me? As an assistant I meant.” Archers face was a polite blank. Huth’s words seemed to drop into the silence it created. “I have never found another officer with whom I could share so much. Who is so on my wavelength, I meant. What if you had got yourself tortured, or shot? Go on with escapades like this and you will. Do you know the tension I feel, knowing I might lose you? My…the best assistant I have ever had? You put too much strain on me, with this. Your pathetic conscience…” he spat the words out like vinegar “…you are too wrapped up in it to see that I fear for you. You would be irreplaceable…” he paused to silently castigate himself for the choice of words “…and the void you left…” realising he was fighting a losing battle, Huth finally trailed off. Silence rushed to fill the gap left by his speech, the words hanging there between them.

The forces of awkwardness are not completely unmerciful. The tension between them dissipated like the smoke. Archer stubbed out his cigarette and stood slowly, his anger calmed. The pain was returning to his hand now, with the drop in adrenalin. Doubtless he would feel it full force in the morning. For now, he felt oddly light.

He closed his arms around Huth. Eventually, his embrace was returned.


End file.
